Walking into Ben Branson’s Sylva gives Ex-Machina vibes. Except it’s not AI robots being created at his lab, it’s aged non-alcoholic spirits. Branson, founder of Diageo non-alcoholic spirit Seedlip, launched his latest project, called Sylva, at the tail end of the summer. Sylva is a non-alcoholic distillery and maturation lab at his home in Essex, UK.
Since the development of the non-alcoholic spirits category, recreating the effects of aged spirits has thus far been underwhelming. Many brands have added caramel or chilli to replicate the texture and flavour, but nobody has nailed it. Sylva, however, could be the answer.
The research, experimentation and development are led by Branson and Jack Wareing, and sees a new approach to making premium dark spirits. Using techniques such as sonic maturation, vacuum distillation and vacuum kiln roasting, they have developed a process to not only extract the full flavour profile of traditional barrel wood and grain varieties, but explore the use of trees from all over the world.
“We don’t have any of the restrictions traditional spirits have when it comes to distillation and maturation processes, so we have a blank canvas,” says Branson.
“Barrels were first created for transporting goods, the woods used were based on their ability to hold liquid and durability. But we’re choosing wood based on flavour.”
Inspiration table
A visit to the lab reveals no ageing warehouses filled with cobwebs or dusty floors. Instead, a large, open-plan office with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooks the surrounding woodland. In the centre of the room is a table covered in books and wood samples from which the duo has drawn inspiration.
At the back, the weeks-old laboratory has piles of containers filled with various wood chippings and grains ready to be experimented with.
The vacuum kiln roaster can change the properties of a wood, unlocking aromas and taste profiles never experienced before, while the sonic maturation speeds up the ageing process and extracts flavours into the distillate – something traditional casks cannot do.
Branson adds: “Even on the land surrounding the lab we have a wide diversity of local and invasive wood types which we can experiment with, but we’ve also sourced more exotic ones. The beauty of it is that we see nuances in flavour and aromas in the same wood depending on how we process it, so the possibilities are seemingly endless.
“That’s why we didn’t want to have just one or two varieties because we have so many possibilities when it comes to cereals, wood type and our processes. We’re only just scratching the surface.”
Each expression of Sylva will be small batch and made-toorder, depending on the demand. Sylva’s first release, Padauk, uses wood from its namesake tree from West Africa, known for its reddish-orange bark and strong aromas.
Red Oak from Sylva’s onsite forest has also been used for its porous qualities as well as American oak staves from Nc’nean distillery in Scotland.
Branson and Wareing are experimenting with different cereals and grains for the base distillate, which again marry together differently with different wood types. The base distillate for Padauk is rye, which has undergone malted rye extraction, toasted rye vacuum distillation, and gravity percolation to enhance its flavour.
It may not be Padauk which revolutionises the non-alcoholic spirits category, nor the second or third release by Sylva. But with such creative freedom and the tools to explore, it seems inevitable Branson will find something game changing.
